Sunday e-mail 7th January 2024

What to expect over the coming weeks; a grab-bag of bullet points

Here we are, with our first Crime & Psychology e-mail of 2024. I hope the new year is going well for you.

A very big welcome to all new subscribers! It’s great to have you on board.

Let me ask you a question: Did you enjoy last week’s newsletter about what seems to be another failure of offender profiling, and the serial murders in the Calder Oil Field? When I started this newsletter, that was the kind of material I imagined providing regularly: real-life crimes seen through the lens of Psychology. Let me know if you like it, too. As you might imagine, I have a great deal to tell you about exactly that kind of thing.

But what do we have to look forward to this year? What have I already put on the schedule? I’m glad you asked. I’ve been slaving away getting all kinds of goodies ready for you.

Wednesday’s regular newsletter will be about an online scam that seems to be new…but is it? You can decide for yourself on Wednesday! It’s not exactly unprecedented: even citizens of the Old West might have recognised the basic idea, if not the method of execution… Speaking of execution, well, we shall soon be taking a look at the execution of a serial killer, the ‘causes’ of crime (and you’ll see why I’ve put those inverted commas there) and then there will be an exciting delve back into history when we consider one of the most notorious criminals who ever lived.

And as if that isn’t enough to get you breathless with anticipation, you can also look forward to an update to our great Dictionary of Crime and perhaps one or two other interesting things I have up my sleeve…

Stick with Crime & Psychology – it’s just going to keep getting bigger and better!

Please remember, if you enjoy the newsletter, like, restack, subscribe, and think about pledging a little cash, too. It all encourages me to keep on going and keep on delivering this material to you!   

What has happened this week? Let’s see, below:

Jason

A really mixed bag of bullet points this week, some more serious than others:

1.      SWEDEN: As you may know, my lovely wife is Swedish, and we hope to retire to her country one day. By the time you read this, we may even be visiting. I love Sweden and am heavily invested in it. That’s why I was shocked to learn that the country of ABBA, high living-standards, and the World Smiling Championship has recently become, after Mexico, the most dangerous country in the world for grenade and bomb violence (other than those countries that are actively at war). It is impossible to over-emphasise how startling this is. It’s Sweden! (By the way, I just made up the bit about the World Smiling Championship – but it ought to be true.)

2.      FILM: We cancelled our cinema membership. It was a big decision, but the time had come. Of seven new films at our local multiplex, no fewer than six were either remakes or sequels. On our last day before university term recommenced, we watched Sunset Boulevard again. It made us ask, Who needs cinema membership? If it’s been a year or two since you last saw it, check out Sunset Boulevard again. It will amaze you with pin-sharp script, moody visuals, unforgettable plot. In ten years, nothing at the multiplex has come close.

3.      ACADEMIA: Did you hear the one about the professor whose status became untenable? Claudine Gay, Harvard’s answer to Prime Minister Liz Truss, resigned this week over allegations of plagiarism. It’s impossible to remain the head of a world-renowned University while accused of the gravest of academic sins. Some would say that Gay should have lost her position somewhat earlier, when she seemed to tell Congress that it might be acceptable for her students to call for genocide, depending on the ‘context’. (You can see the whole thing here. ) It’s very difficult to imagine what context could possibly justify something like that. Imagine how Jewish students on the campus must have felt. Konstantin Kisin provides a short but typically-incisive account here.

4.      KENNEDY: My lifelong obsession with the ‘crime of the century’ led me to an interest in Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson. Over the holidays, I worked away at Robert A Caro’s massive, majestic biography. I’m now 2400 pages deep, and Johnson has barely left the Senate. It’s impossible to get this close to the Johnson without realising what a mass of contradictions he was: the ultimate legislator who cheated his way into the Senate; the ‘civil rights President’ who constantly fought against civil rights; the frightened child with the body of a giant and ambition the size of a galaxy; the physical coward who, when he could finally not avoid combat duty, impressed even the veterans sitting beside him with his impenetrable courage… If you can find the time, The Years of Lyndon Johnson is a great piece of intellectual work of our time.

5.      CRIME FICTION: New year. I am tired already, are you? I need a good story, or several. Since I quit working as a book trader, I don’t’ get these things cheap any more, but nevertheless I bought a pile of pulp fiction and other paperbacks. I love those 1950s paperbacks with the painted covers, I wish I had more. One of my projects for the year: get reacquainted with Cornell Woolrich, Jack Finney, Donald E Westlake…authors who could just plain tell a good story. Let me know what I’m missing and what else I ought to be reading!